How do I know if my sap has spoiled?

[Oxford]

I only get time to boil on the weekends and I have several 4 and 5 gallon buckets of sap that I’ve been storing until the weekend comes around.

Some are cloudy and have a sour smell. I just dumped those.

Some are a little cloudy but don’t have any smell.

Some are clear except for a few very small jelly-like globs floating on top which have no smell either.

I’m just a small scale guy, so I hate dumping it if it’s still good. On the other hand I don’t want to spend hours boiling it if it’s going to yield a bad tasting syrup.

What do the rest of you do to tell if your sap is still good?


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[buckeye gold]

Personally I never let sap sit, I boil daily. If it's just cloudy it's most likely ok. The best test is boil a small amount in a pan on the stove and smell the team and taste the concentrated sap after a while. The steam will smell really musty and it'll taste bad. That way your not ruining a whole batch. Be sure and wash your storage containers every timie you've held sap.

[Ravenseye]

I've had a few cloudy and off looking batches. Some turn out OK. Others turned out slimy. I'm a weekend boiler too. Nowadays, if it's questionable it gets tossed. I'd rather not go through all the time, expense and effort to turn out something that's not quite right even though I had suspicions in the beginning.

[Lensman]

I take a cup and taste it. If it's still like sweet water its good to go.

[maple flats]

Often even sap that has soured will still make good syrup, just less of it than had you boiled when fresh and it will be darker.
Unless you burn it, the sugar does not get bad, it's just that micro-organisms feed on it and you get less sugar from it.

[ecolbeck]

Maple flats are you saying that there are times that even if the sap tastes bad it will still make usable syrup? How do you tell when it’s too far gone?

[Oxford]

Thanks for the advice. Other than keeping my equipment as clean as possible and trying to keep the sap cold until the weekend boil, is there anything else I can do do keep my sap from spoiling? Can I do a quick-boil of the sap just to kill off the bacteria, while still saving the real boiling for the weekends?

[maple flats]

Maple flats are you saying that there are times that even if the sap tastes bad it will still make usable syrup? How do you tell when it’s too far gone?
Usable yes, good, maybe not. It might be processing grade (commercial). To tell the truth, I always smell the sap in my tanks but I only taste fresh clear sap, never been tempted to taste it when it looks cloudy or smells bad. My answer was based on what I've read that others I trust have written.

[fisheatingbagel]

What Dave says. I only taste clear sap, never cloudy or milky sap. But if it doesn't have a bad smell, maybe just a slight sour odor I'll still boil it and usually turns out fine. I assume the sour smell indicates a lot of bacteria action, but boiling will kill that.

[DrTimPerkins]

If there is a LOT of microbial activity you can end up with poor syrup in at least a couple of ways:

1. Ropey/stringy sap syrup. No saving that. You can tell by dipping something in the sap and pulling it out and watching the sap run off the object. If it drips it is fine. If it forms long snot-like strings, it is bad. Dump it.

2. Sour sap....tastes kind of fizzy, weird mouth feel, ferment/sour taste. Typically happens in tubing systems later in the season when flows are really low and the sap heats up and ferments in the lines. Can't really tell for certain if it is bad until you boil it and smell/taste.

[Ed R]

Always keep your sap segregated in 4 or 5 gallon buckets like your doing. One bad bucket of sap can spoil a whole 55 gallon barrel of sap if you combine it together. You can also lose a lot of your sugar by combining and not boiling right away as well.